Background
The Postal Automated Redirection System (PARS) was deployed in 2007 to handle letter mail that cannot be delivered to the name and address on the mailpiece. Mail sorting equipment can automatically intercept mail with an active Change of Address (COA), and PARS sorting equipment can forward it to the new destination, reducing additional mail handling. If mail that is undeliverable as addressed is not intercepted during the automated process, a carrier at the delivery unit can identify it as either forwardable — with a valid COA — or as return to sender and send it back to the plant for further processing. With the average American moving 11.7 times in their lifetime, the Postal Service must effectively handle PARS mail to ensure timely delivery of essential communications, such as bills, checks, and court documents.
What We Did
Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of procedures for processing and handling PARS mail. To accomplish our objective, we conducted interviews with U.S. Postal Service Headquarters management, obtained and analyzed PARS related data for fiscal years (FY) 2023 and 2024, and determined avoidable costs incurred due to identified issues.
What We Found
The Postal Service PARS mail does not have a service standard, which reduces the accountability and visibility for processing and delivering this mail to customers. Additionally, in FYs 2023 and 2024, delivery units improperly returned large volumes of undeliverable Marketing Mail (over 178 million), which should have been disposed of at the delivery unit, back to processing plants. They also improperly returned mail without a valid COA (over 449 million) back to processing plants – and since no updated address was identified when the mailpiece was run through the PARS sorting equipment, it was cycled back to the same delivery unit. These actions cost the Postal Service about $17.2 million and $95.5 million, respectively. Without further improvements to processes, we forecast an additional $124.5 million will be incurred in FYs 2025 and 2026. Finally, the Postal Service’s publicly available data for PARS mail was based on outdated information and was not reliable.
Recommendations and Management’s Comments
We made 11 recommendations to address the issues identified in the report. Postal Service management agreed with 10 recommendations and disagreed with one. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. Regardless of the disagreement, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) considers management’s comments responsive to all recommendations as corrective actions should resolve the issues.
